Joshua, welcome to the show. Thank you. Tell
me about your vision. My vision. So I work as
a fractional COO because I like helping small
business owners. I like the project work. I like
that there are people in different seasons of
their life that need a guide for a short period
of time to help them deal with their challenges.
And then once it's done, not necessarily need
that person beyond that. I mean, they can keep
going if they want, but I like the practice of
meeting people, solving their problems, getting
them going. And the big reason for that was I
used to be the director of economic development
for a local chamber back when I had a W2 job.
And I really enjoyed stepping into businesses
that needed help and they were having all kinds
of problems. And to see that sigh of relief when
you're like, hey, listen, I'm here to support
and help you. let me just get you the resources
or connections you need um it just i mean it
helps those business owners significantly and
i do have an economics background in understanding
the role that small businesses play in our community
i think we need to do more efforts to support
and help those members of our community that
provide goods services jobs money resources we
need to take care of them and help them And it's
getting harder. Taxes are going up. Regulations
are going up. Competition is going up. And so
I want to do my part to help preserve small businesses
as community members so we can have small, resilient
communities that are almost kind of self -sufficient
or sustainable. Thank you for sharing that. Tell
me more. Why small business owners? And I think
you kind of answered that, but I would love to
hear more on all your thoughts on that. And how
do you get started on this path from being a
W -2 employee in the Chamber of Commerce, I'm
guessing, to being in front of a show and going
about being a financial CEO? Yeah. Well, for
small businesses, I think it's something like
90 % of businesses are small businesses. uh they
employ i think like 60 of the workforce i gotta
go through the stats again but it's just it's
a significant number it's actually bigger than
what most people think because they think like
large corporations but yes they have a lot of
people on their staff but in aggregate small
businesses make up a bigger percentage and so
um and they also keep the dollars local i mean
the guy that's down the street that has that
brick and mortar when he you know sells us goods
and services that money goes into his account
and he's grocery shopping in the area and so
that dollar stays around it's an economic multiplier
um so understanding the mechanisms of that and
the importance of that that's that's why compassionate
for it um and how i got into this yeah uh when
i was working for the chamber i had the chance
to be a COO of a $10 million in revenue manufacturing
facility. I was supposed to walk into the job.
This was February of 2020. Not a great time for
a career transition. So they basically told me
like, hey, we're going to put this on hold and
we'll get back to you. So, you know, unfortunately,
my family likes to eat and they like it to have
a roof over their head. So I had to figure out
how to make money. I used to be an entrepreneur
before. And so I saw everybody going online.
I built an SEO audit business to help audit people's
websites and tell them exactly what they need
to do to fix their websites. I figured I would
just give them all the information, no secrecy,
no dark magic. Just here's what you need to do.
Here's the data and information. Here's the best
practices. That took off really quick. So got
to six figures in 18 months. And a buddy of mine
that was a fractional CFO for a regional CPA
firm caught up with me and he said, hey, Joshua,
you know, with what you did with your business
and what you did at the chamber, you should look
at becoming a fractional COO and stepping in
and helping people. I thought, okay, I did it
at the chamber kind of a little bit, so let's
do it. So I put a shingle up and started picking
up clients right away. just been going full tilt
since I put myself out there because believe
it or not, you know, there's not a lot of operations
people out there trying to hook their services.
There seems to be a lot of marketers and sales
people, but operations is not one of those like,
Oh yeah, that's what I need. Like, Oh yeah, that's
where I want to go with it. So it's been interesting
to be in the marketplace and see the, see the
overall positive response to that. You know,
Joshua, you, It's very interesting that you mentioned
that. I would say infrastructure is probably
one of the most undervalued or overlooked aspect
of any business. And most people don't want to
work in it, build it, or don't even know what
to do about it. I have no idea. They think marketing
fixes their business, and they ignore this big
infrastructure issue out there. They'll help
them grow their own business, and they have no
idea why. I mean, the best analogy for it is
it's a leaky bucket. Yeah. And they're like,
oh, I'm just going to keep adding water. Yeah,
sure. You can do that or you can fix the bucket.
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned something.
That's awesome. Yeah. So. Tell me more. Like.
The transition from being the SEO audit person,
right? to now the fractional CEO. What was that
like? And I think there's also a lot of lessons
you probably learned in the 18 months you were
getting your business going as an SEO audit company.
What was that like? I bet there's a lot of lessons
you learned. Oh, there was. So I, many years
ago, tried to be a digital agency website. And
this was before social media was, off the ground
so i'm kind of old but that's okay um and i i
just i didn't have good business practices i
just didn't understand structure organization
i i had people not paying me and then i would
do more work to try to get them to pay and i
just every mistake in the book that you could
make as an entrepreneur i made it and uh finally
i went back to school and then um you know got
a w -2 job and everything else and and so this
This new version of the SEO business, like I
was it came from some really harsh learnings
from before. So this wasn't like, you know, magically,
I just got it right the first go. But I think
what I did different was I took my experience
of watching other businesses succeed and fail
and some failing from success, which that's a
that's a fun one. And so when I started my business,
I was like, you know, if I have one clear product
and one clear ICP. And I just hit that over and
over again and really focus. I think I can do
it. And there was, there was enough because I,
my market differentiator was, I'm not a SEO guy
that's trying to do 27 ,000 things for you. Or
I really am the web developer. That's once the
S you know, I do SEO because I have to, because
I want to get the website contract. No, I was
an SEO that did SEO. So then people were like,
did you do social media? I was like, no, you
need to go talk to a social media person. And
so it was really clear what my lane was. And
then because of the audit that I did. I looked
at what was available on the market and what
people were presenting. And, you know, it was
a lot of like bait and switch or it was, you
know, oh, well, here's the answer. But like,
I'm the only one that can fix it because I've
defined the terms this way. Or, you know, it's
I don't know. There's just a lot of tactics out
there to guarantee sales and money and, you know,
all those different things. And so I just decided
I don't want to play any of that. So here's the
data. Here's the information. Here's how you
fix it. Here's exactly how to fix it. And people
were excited for it. And I think my overall mantra
when it comes to business interactions is to
try to provide more value than I'm capturing.
And so as long as the balance sheet is in my
favor, right, then I know I did right. And so
if I give somebody and, you know, they fix their
website and they generate $100 ,000 in new sales
and they only gave me $5 ,000 for all the work
I did. Cool. You know. There was about another
$10 ,000 worth of work you needed to do and you
did it. So then here you go. You get the full
return and the benefit of what I did. And if
you decide to put it up on the shelf because
your team doesn't want to do the work, okay,
but I know that this could generate, you know,
at least $10 ,000, $20 ,000 worth of additional
work. So again, I'm still not charging the full
value of what I could receive for that. So that
made me okay. But the other part, the reason
why this was successful too was It's very operationally
focused. I mean, I literally have a system on
like how I report things out. I have different
data at different levels for who I am talking
to in the organization. So if I'm talking to
a CEO, they get the CEO overview to kind of know
how to manage that. Directors have a little more
information. Mid -level managers and the doers,
I give them detailed files. So if I give you
the data dump and you're a director level, you're
overwhelmed. So anyway, I just created systems
and processes. And by doing that, I think that
set me up for that next conversation about doing
operations for people because I've already operationalized
my business and how it runs and set up systems
for people. So why not do that in a more formal
way? That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that.
So on this show, I think there's, I don't say
this enough. We like to hear. like the good,
bad, and the ugly of entrepreneurship. I think
that's something is if more and more entrepreneurs
shared that authentically, I think the audience
would know like, hey, this is what it takes to
do this route. The entrepreneurship route is
not easy. It is not all hunky -dory. It's not
all like flowers here, rainbows there, and like
you're just going through this meadow. Oh, they
think you get to do whatever with your time and
you just, you know, wake up. Yeah, exactly. I
got freedom. I work, choose my own hours. Yeah.
So you mentioned in one of your, when you fill
out one of the form, you mentioned, I also ran
a terrible agency for many years and have failed.
I've learned from those failures and helped others
and myself succeed. Yeah. I would love to hear
your thoughts more on that. More on more. You're
like, you're like NASCAR. You watch it just for
the. you're waiting for that crash and then you're
like let's see it over and over again yeah um
i don't know it's my first piece of advice for
anyone going into entrepreneurship don't do it
yes and then if they say oh you're probably right
then i'm like okay great you just failed and
so you definitely should not be doing entrepreneurship
but if i say don't do it and they say hey but
i have a good idea i know this could work i'm
like great you passed the first test right like
There's going to be so many things coming against
you to tell you why you shouldn't do it. Really,
actually, there'll be times where you probably
shouldn't do it because you're not the right
person for this, but you can be the right person.
And I think that's where entrepreneurship is
one of those things of like, it's a test of character
and it's a test of like your grit and everything
that you think that you know about business ownership,
it's going to be tested. And so it's up to you
to step up. You can become that person. Listen,
you can learn all the different facets of your
business. You can learn how to fix all that stuff.
But you have to have the attitude of like being
ready to learn and grow. And so I think, you
know, when I first started off doing creative
work, creative work has inherent problems with
it. You know, it's not like you're trying to
install a toilet. You know, the toilet goes in.
There's certain specifications, but there's not
a lot of options. And so there's the toilet and
you're done. Check. We're talking about trying
to capture somebody else's vision of what they
want, but they don't have the technical expertise.
And then you're trying to translate it and then
build it while they're critiquing. Like it just
has all kinds of problems. And so I think I was
unaware of, you know, I could build websites.
I could code it like, yeah, sure. No problem.
But then you deal with. people that have opinions
and thoughts and all of a sudden, you know, if
you get a chance, go check out the oatmeal. When
a website design goes straight to hell, brain
analogy of what, what it's like. So anyway, so
that was just one facet of my business stack
that with everything else with, and I just, I
wasn't prepared. I didn't have contracts in place.
I didn't have contingencies in place. I didn't
have guidelines. I didn't set good expectations.
And so. that's where essentially i the thing
is i failed but i didn't fail like one day i
was open the next day i was closed because everything
blew up and there was nothing it was this like
it's like uh imagine if you're trying to cook
in a kitchen and your every dish that you're
making is burning and it's burning on the stove
and it's burning in the oven and it's burning
in the toaster and like and yet you still have
to keep cooking and so that's what it was it
was just like i just Oh, it was terrible. I should
have quit earlier than I did. I should have gotten
a V2 job. But I hung out for, yeah, six years,
me and my wife and my kids. And I can't say that
I wouldn't ever have done that because of that
experience. I now know a lot. But would I wish
that upon anybody? No. And is that the path for
most people when they're starting? No. Is that
a possibility? Yes. And I've seen worse. So thank
you for being here today. I'm really happy that
you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking
forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes
continue to move forward. This is going to get
more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement
as well. We'll invite people to participate in
the show. And thank you for giving us your time
and attention. Have an excellent time building
out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.